Faithless

Chapter 9

Late that night, I snuck into the backyard of Hannah's house, for police were stationed in front of it, to no surprise. If Hannah had been murdered, it was better to keep an eye on her family just in case the murderer ever came back with a vendetta against the rest of them. No one was watching the backyard, so it was easy to hop over the wooden picket fence and creep around the side. Hannah's bedroom window was on the second floor, her window facing the neighbor's house to the right.

The vine trellis sat against the wall, and was tall enough that it just reached the height of her window. I hooked my fingers in the holes and lifted myself up. To my surprise, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I'd never been able to climb anything before, due to my lack of upper body strength and the way my hands trembled whenever I would try. But now, it was like second nature.

I reached the top of the trellis and reached over to tug Hannah's window open. It had not been locked since I left that night, which didn't really surprise me. I climbed in quietly, clinging to the window sill above her bed. Not much had changed. At most, her body had been removed and the bed had been stripped of her sheets. There were still bloodstains on the carpets, with clear evidence that someone had tried and failed to clean it out.

Moving around her bed, I landed silently on the floor and looked around. Hannah's walls were painted white, tinted pink, and the wall above her dresser was covered in band and music posters. The bands I recognized from when she mentioned them to me before; namely Hole, Sleater-Kinney, and Dixie Chicks. In the walls around her bed were polaroid photos of her and her friends. I wasn't in many of the photos, to no surprise, but I did see myself in a couple. Both of which were just me and Hannah together.

I stood up and walked around, taking a slow look at all of her things. A bookshelf filled with mostly books of the romance genre, clothes laid out on her dresser, presumably a planned outfit, and an electric guitar and an amp sitting in the corner. Her desk sat right next to the instrument, and laid out on her desk were loose sheets of notebook paper with chords and lyrics scribbled down on them. There were so many things I didn't know about her, and so many things that everyone never mentioned.

Her diary was next to the other sheets of paper, and I slowly picked it up and flipped through the pages. Consistent entries; she was always thinking about something. Her handwriting was neat and flowery, and she had a tendency to dot her i's with hearts.

"Someone's coming," Krieth said. He'd been waiting just outside the window on a tree branch. "You should get going."

And he was right. I could hear the footsteps of someone walking to the door. I tucked Hannah's diary into my jacket and rushed back over to the window. I climbed back over to the trellis and reached over to close the window. While trying to make sure I didn't drop her diary, fall off the trellis and close the window all without being seen, it had suddenly become increasingly difficult. I gripped the top of the trellis with one hand, while using my elbow to hold the diary in place under my jacket. My foot clung to one of the holes while I was reaching over to the window with my right hand.

"You try too hard and you'll fall."

"Shut up," I whispered through gritted teeth. I managed to pull the window shut before I heard the bedroom door open, and I let out a long sigh of relief. Then the top of the wooden trellis bent under the weight of my grip, and snapped. I fell from where I stood against the wall into the bushes against the neighboring fence.

Krieth flew down and perched himself on top of the wooden fencepost. "I told you." I sighed and moved to push myself to my feet, but Krieth stopped me. "Don't get up yet. If you get up now you'll be seen."

I froze in place, waiting for something to happen. I didn't hear or see anything, though that was probably due to the position I was in. There was a good chance someone heard me fall and was checking, or maybe someone had spotted me climbing up the side of the house and was double checking if someone was there. Regardless, I trusted what Krieth was saying.